


A Man's Reach Should Exceed His Grasp

by frackin_sweet



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Short & Sweet, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-02
Updated: 2015-04-02
Packaged: 2018-03-20 22:34:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3667737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frackin_sweet/pseuds/frackin_sweet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ragnar makes a side trip before joining his fellow warriors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Man's Reach Should Exceed His Grasp

**Author's Note:**

> Contains a major spoiler, so please do not read if you have not seen the episode "Born Again". Also, spoilers for history I guess?
> 
> My portrayals of Christian and Norse afterlife mythologies are possibly not quite the most well-known and accepted ones. Basically I like making shit up if it suits me.
> 
> Title is from _Men and Women and Other Poems_ by Robert Browning.

As the rage bleeds away, he feels regret. To die far from home, a victim and a prisoner. Ragnar has been warrior his whole life. He should die on his feet, with his sword in his hand, last breath given to one last battle roar announcing his arrival at the doors of Valhalla.

Instead, he is cold, so cold. His joints lock with a grinding agony and refuse to bend. His strength fails, and breath comes short as the flush of life flees from his limbs, his torso, his face. 

His sight grows dim, and still the All-Father does not come. Ragnar does not even hear crows. Finally, he closes his eyes, and lets go of his grip on pain. Fighting will not change anything now.

He thinks he hears birds. A soft, skirling chirp of spring.

Ragnar opens his eyes. The stifling, fetid gloom of the snakepit has given way to a sunlit hillside. The birds dart across a lazy afternoon sky. And the long grass bends before the tread of a man.

This man is not terribly tall or broad. His clothing is worn and faded, his face is lined by cares and the sun. He carries no weapons. He is not a Viking. He is not English, or Frank, or Saxon. He is like no one Ragnar has ever seen, and yet a little bit like everyone. 

Long, unbound hair blows across his face as the man looks down at Ragnar. “You can get up, you know.”

The words are in some strange, unknown language, and yet Ragnar understands them. He tests his body, carefully rolling to one side. His bonds are gone, as is his pain. The man watches as Ragnar gets to his feet.

“This is not Valhalla.” Ragnar realizes that he is speaking the same strange yet familiar language, and that he sounds accusatory. “What is this place? Is it some afterlife?”

And the man just _looks_ at him. 

Suddenly Ragnar can remember every pain he has ever caused another person. He sees every willful hurt, every betrayal, every man, woman and child harmed in large and small ways. Every life taken by his hand or his influence.

Ragnar feels a pang of barely-remembered grief. He never thought he would be subjected to the laws of gods not his own, gods who reward compassion over valor. “I do not ask your forgiveness,” he blurts, even as tears run down his cheeks.

The man smiles. It makes his lined, brown face beautiful. “Yet you have it anyway, Ragnar Lothbrok,” he says.

Ragnar looks away, down the hill towards a light-dappled stream. This is a beautiful place, but it is not his place. “Why am I here?”

The Christ-god rubs his beard, a surprising human gesture. “Why not? You are as welcome as any. Heaven is full of sinners. All I ever ask of them is their love.”

Ragnar snorts, and the thought that it is perhaps improper to deride a foreign god to his face comes too late. “I do not love you.”

“No, you do not. But your love for one of my children is what brings you here, to the very gates of paradise.” The Christ-god stands back and holds his hand out, pointing to a clearing in the trees. A smaller man stands there, his form haloed by the sun.

“Go, Ragnar Lothbrok. Your dear one has been waiting to see you before you depart for your Valhalla.”

The Christ-god smiles as crows fly overhead, and as Ragnar and Athelstan embrace.

_\--end_


End file.
